Friday, July 27, 2007

For Those Who Feel Politically Hopeless

gardengoddess (See profile)

If you're hopeless, you only have yourself to blame for that, as hopelessness is an internal issue, not an external one. Hopelessness is like happiness - it's a choice one can make.

As far as the being helpless goes - Get off your computer, pick up the phone, and start calling members of the House and Senate. Don't restrict your calls to those from your state. Hell, call them ALL! I call 6 a day - 3 in the House, 3 in the Senate, until I've gone through the list, then I start over.

This government is OUR government. It doesn't belong to the administration, it doesn't belong to elected representatives - it's OURS! We pay for it every day, and we're the ones who are called to fight for it when it's threatened. But if Americans don't stop being so willing to turn their government over without a fight, it won't be ours much longer.

WE have the real power in all this - not Bush, not Cheney, not anyone in the House or Senate. America is for Americans, not politicians. Anyone who sits back and relies on politicians, no matter who they are, what state they're from, how much you may admire them, is a fool.

We get the government we deserve, and we get that government by our unwillingness to really get involved.

Monday, July 23, 2007

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Tuesday, July 17, 2007

While Europeans Vacation, Americans Toil

By Marie Cocco, Truthdig. Posted July 12, 2007.

Shorter vacations, longer work weeks and skimpy sick leave for Americans add up -- not to greater upward mobility, but to a burned-out workforce earning less than preceding generations.

Click this link for story

Saturday, July 14, 2007

All Hail the Prophetic Gut!

By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Countdown

Thursday 12 July 2007

All Hail The Prophetic Gut!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Chinese Food

In today's excerpt--Chinese food and other new things in current-day Shanghai:

"Not long ago, my wife and I moved to Shanghai for an indefinite stay. ... The daily surprise is how inexpensive, rather than expensive, the basics of life can be. Starbucks coffee shops are widespread and wildly popular in big cities, even though the prices are equivalent to their U.S. levels. But for the same 24 yuan, or just over $3, that a young Shanghai office worker pays for a latte, a construction worker could feed himself for a day or two from the noodle shop likely to be found around the corner from Starbucks. Pizza Hut is also very popular, and is in the 'fine dining' category. My wife and I walked into one on a Wednesday evening and were turned away because we hadn't made reservations. Taco Bell Grande is similarly popular and prestigious; the waiters wear sombreros that would probably lead to lawsuits from the National Council of La Raza if worn in stateside Taco Bells. Kentucky Fried Chicken is less fancy but is a runaway success in China, as it is in most of Asia. ...

"The signs of China's rise are of course apparent everywhere. ... From a room in the futuristic Tomorrow Square (!) building where we have been staying, I can look across People's Square to see three huge public video screens which run commercials and music video seemingly nonstop. The largest screen, nearly two miles away, is the entire side of the thirty-seven-story Aurora building in Pudong, Shanghai's new financial district. In the daytime, the sides of the building are a shiny gold reflective color. At night, they show commercials to much of the town. 'People under thirty can't remember anything but a boom,' a European banker who has come to Shanghai to expand a credit-card business told me. 'It's been fifteen years of double-digit annual expansion. No one anywhere has seen anything like that before.' ...

"Every run-down neighborhood has a bakery selling very good croissants and baguettes--though it is very hard to find cheese in China, which after all has no dairy-food tradition, and where a standard knock against Westerners is that they 'smell like butter.' "

James Fallows, "Postcards From Tomorrow Square," The Atlantic, December 2006, pp. 101- 109.

Sunday, July 8, 2007

The History Boys

The History Boys
By David Halberstam
Vanity Fair

August 2007 Issue

In the twilight of his presidency, George W. Bush and his inner circle have been feeding the press with historical parallels: he is Harry Truman - unpopular, besieged, yet ultimately to be vindicated - while Iraq under Saddam was Europe held by Hitler. To a serious student of the past, that's preposterous. Writing just before his untimely death, David Halberstam asserts that Bush's "history," like his war, is based on wishful thinking, arrogance, and a total disdain for the facts.

The History Boys